MiSTer Super Attract Mode (SAM) is now available - the first game screensaver for your MiSTer!

[mrchrister]

Been messing with SAM for the first time tonight, some feedback:

• Amiga doesn't seem to be working for me, no matter the game/demo I only get the Minimig-AGA boot screen with the error "No Kickstart loaded. Press F12 for settings. ** Halted! **" I have the latest AmigaVision installed (2023.12.25 release), with no particular changes to the configuration. Launching the "Amiga" core directly brings up the MegaAGS main menu as expected. Is there anything in particular I should look for?
• For MD/Genesis, the old "Genesis" core is used rather than the new "MegaDrive" core, which is where I have my games and everything else setup, is there a way to define which core to use? And if not, do you plan on eventually making the "MegaDrive" core the one that SAM uses?
• Similarly, it would be interesting to have the option to launch Game Boy games in the SGB core.
• As I use my MiSTer mostly with my CRT (a PVM 20M2U to be specific), I've been trying to select only 15kHz-capable cores. This is easy enough for non-arcade cores (basically, only ao486 needs to be disabled), but might require maintaining a whitelist for arcade? I could contribute a first list if needed.
• Whenever I press Start to end SAM and play the current game, the core reboots after a few seconds. This doesn't seem like intended behaviour? All inputs are working before the reboot.

Very cool project overall! I can see myself spending time with the roulette mode, when I'll find the time...

Thanks for all the feedback.

1. For Amiga, amigavision is using mgl now to split the config between Amiga and Amiga500. Maybe it has something to do with it, not sure. I just tested the newest Amigavision and it's working fine for me. Do you have minimig.cfg in /media/fat/config ?
2. Yes, let's update to the new one, I'll do that in the next version. Is it installed by default with update all?
3. I'll look into SGB support
4. Are there any non 15khz arcade games supported by MiSTer? I use my MiSTer with a PVM 2030 and haven't had any issues with non working games.
5. For start to work, you need to set up the controller in the menu first. You can also set "playcurrentgame=yes" in MISTer_SAM.ini

[mrchrister]

SAM's default is to not repeat games. There is a norepeat option in the ini. If you see the same game playing more often it might be different versions of the same game (different file names). SAM is stripping out any duplicates as well if multiple versions of a game are found in different places but the file names are identical.

CPS 1 and 2 are good for test because they show the release on the first screen and it is always the euro version, same date.

norepeat works like expected for the core for me.

You can test by checking how many games are in the arcade list after each core change. If the number goes down, it is deleting played games from the list.

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/root# cat /tmp/.SAM_List/arcade_gamelist.txt | wc -l
84
/root# m next
 Skipping to next game...
/root# cat /tmp/.SAM_List/arcade_gamelist.txt | wc -l
83
/root# 

When I check the list for Mega Man, I only get 1 copy of the US version:

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/root# cat /tmp/.SAM_List/arcade_gamelist.txt | grep -i mega
/media/fat/_Arcade/_Organized/_4 Video & Inputs/_2 Rotation/_Horizontal/Mega Man 2- The Power Fighters (US, 960708).mra
/media/fat/_Arcade/_Organized/_4 Video & Inputs/_2 Rotation/_Horizontal/Mega Man- The Power Battle (US, 951006).mra
/media/fat/_Arcade/_Organized/_4 Video & Inputs/_2 Rotation/_Horizontal/Mega Twins (W, 900619).mra
/root# 

This means it will play all arcade games in the list before there is a chance again for SAM to select Mega Man Power Battle.
It sounds like you only have a few games in that list, that's why it repeats often. Please issue the commands above in ssh and check your output for further debugging. Also make sure you have Arcade Organizer under Tools and Scripts enabled in update all.

GQie6lG.png (136.03 KiB) Viewed 1110 times

[mrchrister]

• Added SGB support
• Switched genesis core to MegaDrive core
• New strict mode to delete dupe roms

[pbsk8]

SAM's default is to not repeat games. There is a norepeat option in the ini. If you see the same game playing more often it might be different versions of the same game (different file names). SAM is stripping out any duplicates as well if multiple versions of a game are found in different places but the file names are identical.

CPS 1 and 2 are good for test because they show the release on the first screen and it is always the euro version, same date.

norepeat works like expected for the core for me.

You can test by checking how many games are in the arcade list after each core change. If the number goes down, it is deleting played games from the list.

Code: Select all

/root# cat /tmp/.SAM_List/arcade_gamelist.txt | wc -l
84
/root# m next
 Skipping to next game...
/root# cat /tmp/.SAM_List/arcade_gamelist.txt | wc -l
83
/root# 

When I check the list for Mega Man, I only get 1 copy of the US version:

Code: Select all

/root# cat /tmp/.SAM_List/arcade_gamelist.txt | grep -i mega
/media/fat/_Arcade/_Organized/_4 Video & Inputs/_2 Rotation/_Horizontal/Mega Man 2- The Power Fighters (US, 960708).mra
/media/fat/_Arcade/_Organized/_4 Video & Inputs/_2 Rotation/_Horizontal/Mega Man- The Power Battle (US, 951006).mra
/media/fat/_Arcade/_Organized/_4 Video & Inputs/_2 Rotation/_Horizontal/Mega Twins (W, 900619).mra
/root# 

This means it will play all arcade games in the list before there is a chance again for SAM to select Mega Man Power Battle.
It sounds like you only have a few games in that list, that's why it repeats often. Please issue the commands above in ssh and check your output for further debugging. Also make sure you have Arcade Organizer under Tools and Scripts enabled in update all.

after typing those commands, it shows like this:

Always shows 95 (I set sam only to run cps1 and 2 and neogeo) and mine has those alternative , is it normal? I only use updateall everytime since fresh install.

sam.png (84.16 KiB) Viewed 1108 times

and update all is 2.1 for me, shows like this:

upd.png (22.4 KiB) Viewed 1108 times

[mrchrister]

Yup, updateall looks right. Let's see...

1. "m next" does only work after sshconfig as mentioned here:

   One more tip: If the list includes games you don't like just issue a ssh command:

   Code: Select all

    /media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh ignore

   or for easier access issue

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    /media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh sshconfig

   then open a new ssh session and simply type

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   m ignore

1. Please confirm "norepeat" is set to yes in MiSTer_SAM.ini

[mrchrister]

Rereading your post and I realized you have 7 versions of Mega Man in that list with 90 something titles, so it makes sense that it plays quite often.
Assuming norepeat works as expected, you can either set arcade orientation to horizontal, which will only play games from the horizontal list which will only show power battle once per 80 something titles or you can ignore the other versions by issuing 'm ignore' which will create an ignore list and add the files you don't want to show.

[rhester72]

What exactly is SAM looking for with respect to Saturn games? Mine says none were detected, despite mine being separated in directories (just like PSX, to properly support multi-disc games) and are all in CHD format.

[mrchrister]

So far it was only supporting cue format. I just updated SAM to support chd, but don't have any roms to test. Please let me know if it works. I might also have to recompile wizzo's samindex tool to get it working.

[rhester72]

So far it was only supporting cue format. I just updated SAM to support chd, but don't have any roms to test. Please let me know if it works. I might also have to recompile wizzo's samindex tool to get it working.

Works! Thank you!

[syntax_x]

I had been having a play with SAM recently and was interested in the SAM_Game.txt file that gets generated in /tmp and how to use it to auto update stream titles and such.
I made a small script that grabbed the info from it and CORENAME which gave a nice readout for game info.
I then realized that SAM doesn't update SAM_Game.txt after you use the controller, and was stuck trying to find a way to get the game title from MiSTer.

I came to the solution to change recents.cpp in MiSTer main to output a cleaned copy of recents.cfg to /tmp/recents.txt every time recents.cfg is written to.
This results in a nice small file in /tmp with only the currently selected game plus extension written inside, I can now go from SAM to normal MiSTer and the gui will update seamlessly by using file modification times.
Here is the py script packaged as an exe, with a cfg file for a few settings and the modified MiSTer main.

https://github.com/synrais/Main_MiSTer

hwzBs7n.png (3.42 KiB) Viewed 1115 times

Its just a little black and white text box, you can copy paste the text from it, use its window as a source in OBS and change the colors or transparency in there with filters.
It probably still needs a heap of testing but seems to work for me fine.

edit
The exe flags as a virus because it was built with py installer. Its safe to use, im happy to share the py script with anyone concerned.
https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/issues/5854

[Newsdee]

The exe flags as a virus because it was built with py installer. Its safe to use, im happy to share the py script with anyone concerned.
https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/issues/5854

Just put the .py script on github and let people use MiSTer's Python to run it - no need to add additional dependencies or downloading .exe files.

[syntax_x]

Its made to run on the pc not a MiSTer.sh script.
The MiSTer side of things is handled by SAM and the modified main.
I thought it was easier for a desktop user to have a simple exe without having to have python and the scripts dependencies installed then having to open terminal or start it via a batch script.

[rhester72]

If <core>_blacklist.txt files are (deliberately) altered, will the changes 'stick' after updates or be overwritten?

[mrchrister]

It will be overwritten. If you want to exclude games, follow instructions from the GitHub page :

Code: Select all

Exclusion Lists - You can exclude any amount of games that you don't want to have displayed by adding a file called for example snes_excludelist.txt in /media/fat/Scripts/.MiSTer_SAM/SAM_Gamelists folder. One line per game, can be full file path or just the game name.

Or just launch the game you want to exclude and type

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/media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh ignore

in SSH. Sam will create the exclude list for you.

[LamerDeluxe]

Or just launch the game you want to exclude and type

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/media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh ignore

in SSH. Sam will create the exclude list for you.

That sounds like something that would be great to have in the MiSTer remote app. Or better still, a SAM configurable button on the controller. A button for adding for favorites (for checking the game out later) would be great as well, if at all possible.

[rhester72]

It will be overwritten. If you want to exclude games, follow instructions from the GitHub page :

Thank you!

[mrchrister]

Or just launch the game you want to exclude and type

Code: Select all

/media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh ignore

in SSH. Sam will create the exclude list for you.

That sounds like something that would be great to have in the MiSTer remote app. Or better still, a SAM configurable button on the controller. A button for adding for favorites (for checking the game out later) would be great as well, if at all possible.

Totally agree, that would be awesome! wizzo and I have discussed it briefly but haven't really made the necessary steps to implement SAM in Remote.

[LamerDeluxe]

Or just launch the game you want to exclude and type

Code: Select all

/media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_SAM_on.sh ignore

in SSH. Sam will create the exclude list for you.

That sounds like something that would be great to have in the MiSTer remote app. Or better still, a SAM configurable button on the controller. A button for adding for favorites (for checking the game out later) would be great as well, if at all possible.

Totally agree, that would be awesome! wizzo and I have discussed it briefly but haven't really made the necessary steps to implement SAM in Remote.

That is great to hear! Hopefully something will come out of that.

[mrchrister]

M82-1-800x521.jpg (66 KiB) Viewed 1113 times

• Added a M82 mode to SAM. Turn your MiSTer into an M82. Available through the menu (presets) or the ini (m82=yes)
• Added a Next button for SAM which let's you skip games with your gamepad. By default it's "select" on your gamepad. If it doesn't work, try Configure Gamepad in SAM's menu

Please make sure to update with SAM's updater.

[LamerDeluxe]

• Added a M82 mode to SAM. Turn your MiSTer into an M82. Available through the menu (presets) or the ini (m82=yes)
• Added a Next button for SAM which let's you skip games with your gamepad. By default it's "select" on your gamepad. If it doesn't work, try Configure Gamepad in SAM's menu

Please make sure to update with SAM's updater.

The next button is a great idea, for skipping uninteresting or static cores. Maybe an option to blacklist it when it gets skipped would be handy.

[mrchrister]

Oh yeah makes sense. I added a new ini option:

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# When pushing "next game" button on controller, do we want to ignore the game that is currently on. 
# Only works if controller has been configured in menu (or try default button "select")
ignore_when_skip="yes"

[LamerDeluxe]

Oh yeah makes sense. I added a new ini option:

Code: Select all

# When pushing "next game" button on controller, do we want to ignore the game that is currently on. 
# Only works if controller has been configured in menu (or try default button "select")
ignore_when_skip="yes"

Thanks! That will be really handy to filter out games that don't show anything interesting.

[LamerDeluxe]

Where are the blacklisted games added? I'm looking at the blacklist files in Scripts\.MiSTer_SAM\SAM_Gamelists but I'm not seeing any updates.

Wait, my MiSTer_SAM.ini file keeps getting reset to a version with that option removed, why is that?

EDIT: Never mind, I added the option to the ini myself and didn't notice that it was already there, further down, turning it back off

[mrchrister]

I added a new way to keep MiSTer_SAM.ini updated with the current version of SAM. No user settings should be overwritten though. Did SAM change any of your ini settings or just delete a duplicate entry?

Exclusion lists should get created in the the Gamelist folder once the option is active and you click the next button. the files are named eg "snes_excludelist.txt"

[LamerDeluxe]

It deleted a duplicate entry that I had added manually to the basic settings, I didn't see the existing one in the next section and for some reason a text search didn't find it.

I haven't noticed exclude list files, only blacklist ones. I should be able to check that tomorrow.

[mrchrister]

Super Attract Mode now supports 0Mhz DOS collection.

• Install 0Mhz collection
• Make sure "/media/fat/_DOS Games" exist
• Update SAM and enable ao486 in corelist

Hope it works for everyone! 0Mhz is an awesome addition to SAM!

[pbsk8]

Something odd is happening:

Even with ini file set to playcurrentgame to YES, when I touch a button on controller it is loading a different game, not staying on like previously working before.

Already reinstalled but same result.

[remax]

Super Attract Mode now supports 0Mhz DOS collection.

• Install 0Mhz collection
• Make sure "/media/fat/_DOS Games" exist
• Update SAM and enable ao486 in corelist

Hope it works for everyone! 0Mhz is an awesome addition to SAM!

Great news !

Would be nice if it worked also from

Code: Select all

 /media/fat/_Games/_DOS Games 

as i'm quite sure i'm not the only one to have it moved there.

EDIT : Seems it doesn't support anymore having the screensaver files in /games/AO486/screensaver ?

[mrchrister]

That's right. The /screensaver method is not supported anymore since there were only a few games that flynnsbit created.
Good point with the different directory structure. I will probably move it there as well so an ini option to customize the folder makes sense

[mrchrister]

Something odd is happening:

Even with ini file set to playcurrentgame to YES, when I touch a button on controller it is loading a different game, not staying on like previously working before.

Already reinstalled but same result.

It might be that your controller is not configured through SAM's menu, that means one of your buttons will be a "skip game" button. Try to see if hitting another button will respect playcurrentgame